Nice to see the team playing with some energy and playing hard on both ends. Something that had been missing for a while. Also, Starks finally looks like he’s there mentally. He had been going through the motions the last few weeks. Finally seems into the game and other guys are feeding off of it. About damn time.

Starks has been sick. But the rest of the team has been looking sluggish for a couple weeks as well. The only good thing about that loss is that the team has no reason to question the beating they deserve in practice. Maybe it clears their heads?

They hit that damn lull again, but up 13 now. They are still playing pretty soft defense, need some pressure to push it out to 20 in the first five minutes of the second half. UTPA’s best player is not playing today, so they don’t have a hell of a lot of fire power unlike Towson with their Big East transfers.

Starks has 16 points on 6 of 8 shooting. Looking more like the guy who showed up early in the season. When he is focused, he makes the offense so much better. He needs to stay aggressive throughout the conference season.

Defense is still a bit inconsistent, but definitely a lot better than it has been for a while

I heard the announcers say that Starks was distraught about the Towson loss and told CR he was to blame? Good to the see the passion, but Starks was not to blame more than the next guy. If anyone missed open looks time and time (including a crucial free throw) in that dreadful second half it was Roberto. Anyway knowing “luck o’ the Beavs’ the loss will be the line between NiT/CBI at the end of the season!

His brother also played for Georgia and I imagine that he picked up some stuff up from him. He’s going to be a fun one to watch. I also like Langston Morris-Walker’s defensive intensity. Just wish the upperclassmen would gain a killer instinct and clobber these teams so the younger guys can get some experience.

I am not watching because I can’t stream right now. I was just looking at the box score. I like the dynamic of Berto as the distributor and play maker and Starks as the gunner. I think it allows both guys to really play the game they excel at.

Schaftenaar is a guy OSU will need in conference play. He’s got a nice outside shot, needs to be more consistent though. Needs to be better on defense, but him knocking down outside shots is big to force guys to respect his shot and open up the floor for other guys cause they won’t be able to help off Olaf.

Beavs win 84-59. Still got things to clean up before Sunday, but it was nice to see the team play with some energy and play hard. Much better effort than on Saturday. Hopefully the Starks we saw today is what we will see in Pac-12 play. Gonna need him.

I was there. It was a much better effort than the previous outing and the last game I was at against Howard. Beavs outrebounded them by 20 and had 24 assists. Much better passing and moving without the ball. Starks showed up finally and I honestly can’t say anything bad about Burton. He had a monster game. Moreland turned in another double double as well.

I was at the last few games and still believe the only hope we have of competeing is if some player goes off such as Starks did yesterday. We still do not play defense well enough and rely totally on rat ball on offense. If it comes down to coaching and making game time split second decisions we are screwed, CR still just lets the players go and they are totally undisciplined. Oregon will come in here and spank us unless we get lucky and Starks or Nelson get hot. I think Altman will make every effort to not let that happen and we will have to rely on half court offensive sets and I haven’t seen us run a half court offense yet this year. Rat ball and ole defense will not work in Pac 12.

I am scared big time about Oregon and not winning this game at home, when I think OSU has more talent. They need to communicate on defense and quit playing the rat ball. Speaking of rats, I cannot stand Dana Altman, even before he came out here. Felt the Ducks gave up on Kent and nothing has impressed me about his successor, except he has a 3-1 record in the Civil War on CR.

“Rat ball” is a terrible phrase for OSU’s offense. They run a lot of pick and roll, high-low and they run some princeton with Burton dribbling to a side and a wing back cutting. They throw it into the post a ton and isolate and go 1 on 1. This is a lot of NBA offense in their offense. I’m glad they did away with princeton full time, it was hard to watch and the team would go through scoring droughts. Their current offense allows them to play to strengths on offense. When the team has it going, the high-low passing from Moreland/Burton to Collier for dunks or layups, hitting Burton in the middle and kicking it out to Nelson for a three and Starks running the P&R and stepping back for a three can be a thing of beauty.

I for one love the up tempo game and love when teams go back and forth playing at a really fast pace. I wish OSU could run a full court press to speed the game up even more. I find OSU a lot of fun to watch when they get out in the open court a lot. But hey, that’s just me.

So much of an advantage that if not for Collier getting hurt in 2nd game last year and Cunningham getting terrible calls to put him in foul trouble, Oregon would have gotten swept by the Beavers despite OSU playing no defense.

They don’t have Sim and that guy hurt the Beavs. I wouldn’t be calling the offense rat ball unless the guys played with laser focus the entire game and made those cuts. They get complacent with big leads rather than stepping on the gas. They can win a PAC-12 title, that much I know, but they just need to play smart and to their potential. I imagine CR is even more frustrated than I am because I’ve seen his reactions.

Sure, this was a step up from the Towson game, but we still have climbing to do to get into the basement. I very much dislike – ok, hate – being this guy, but the season is being made or lost with the Pac-12 opener on Sunday.

Winners need to win to be winners, and, despite the statistical wins in the pre-conference schedule, the team has not show the mark of winning. This bugs me, because I have been the biggest cheerleader in my local cohort – they have all the pieces, but can’t seem to get the puzzle together.

There’s no Jared excuse. There’s no Angus excuse. Plus, I don’t think it’s all at CR’s feet anymore. Players gotta play, and winners gotta win. Those two things don’t happen, and it’s going to be a long Pac-12 season for us.

The only thing that gives me hope is they might play to the level of their competition (e.g. Kansas game). That will be answered soon enough.
I don’t like what I’ve seen, though. Doesn’t pass my eyeball test of a good team.

Nice post Will. I like CR and it’s bad enough to see Riley getting his ass kicked in every year against the Ducks, but I definately do not want to see CR having this happen to him every year. Altman is a good coach, but ever since he’s been there, he’s had a lot of turnover and getting high-profile transfers may be fine, but it’s not the way to build a strong program program if you have to keep re-stocking the shelves after your 4-year players leave. A lot of Duck fans rag on Ernie Kent, but he also led them to two Elite Eights in a decade, which is hard to do unless you are Duke or Kentucky.

Robinson has been able to recruit and retain with talented HS kids and now it’s time to deliver and that’s what I think sets him apart from Altman is that he seems to falter in the conference, where Altman has been able to do fairly well. Oregon hasn’t been down that long and I still think OSU is still digging themselves out of the mess that began 20+ years ago when Miller retired. I think this game will make or break both teams’ seasons and it is important for OSU to go out and make a statement that they are here to compete for a title and not just remain an-also ran and that starts with the players’ psyches. Craig has been around long enough to know how important the Civil War is and I really hope that the guys go out there as hungry as hell and take no prisoners on Sunday.

The new logo will supposedly be revealed in late Spring. Riley definitely needed to adjust to Okafor by blocking with a TE and not having so many shotgun and empty backfield sets which almost always go bad. Not running anywhere near enough in the 4th is his biggest weakness though.

Sign the petition in the feature below for Riley to run it atleast 50% of the time in every 4th quarter.

Found this statement by Chippy on ESPN. This is why, hate as you will, he wins games:

“Any coach is going to learn from other people and see how they can implement it in their system. Anything you do has to be personnel driven. You have to adapt to the personnel you have. There’s a lot of great offenses out there, but does it fit with the personnel you have. The key is making sure what you’re doing is giving your people a chance to be successful.”

Seriously? You have a petition (which is really a poll) that you plan to submit to Riley, begging him to run the ball for at least half of the 4th quarter plays? When do you plan to submit all 21 of the votes to Riley? I’d like to see his response. I’d imagine the conversation would go somewhat like this.

Beaverbyte: Hi Mike, me and 20 of my buddies have voted and the majority say you need to run the ball more in the 4th Q to win.

Riley: 1st off…..Fuck you…er….ummm………I mean….Jiminy Christmas, Beaverbyte! 2nd, Suck these nuts! 3rd, I’m the motherfucking head coach and you’re just a shitty blogger. Get the fuck out of my face and stop telling me to visit http://beaverbyte.com or I’ll unleash a good deal of fury on you. Hip Hip Hoo-fucking-ray!!